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Author Topic: Scrimshaw  (Read 756 times)

Online Watcherofthewoods

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Scrimshaw
« on: June 27, 2011, 09:36:58 PM »
This was told to me by Poet_with_a_Gun over on the Hoodlums forum and I thought I should share as Scrimshaw is an easy and beautiful artform

Basically:
A medium (like ivory, bone, plastic, horn, antler)
A scratch tool (Like an awl, or a needle)
And ink (I used an old bottle of higgins I had laying around)

You take what you want to work one, if it's bone or something that's not smooth, you polish it up with fine sand paper and steel wool.

You can rub some beeswax onto the surface, and then you scratch out your image or pattern.

You then rub it over with ink, an then use our fine fine steel wool to polish the ink off. What stays is the stuff in the grooves of your art work. (Which is why you polish and smooth and wax it first, so you don't have ink in pores and grooves you didn't make).


This website has some EXCELLENT info on scrimshaw.

http://findermaker.blogspot.com/2009/10/scrimshaw-made-simple.html
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In the silence and solitude of the night is when you truely find yourself.

Offline Snow Walker

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Re: Scrimshaw
« Reply #1 on: June 27, 2011, 09:40:53 PM »
Thanks for the post, I might be able to try this on an antler knife handle I'll be making.  I will have to practice on some pieces I have.
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When the last deer disappears into the morning mist,
When the last elk vanishes from the hills,
When the last buffalo falls from the plains,
I will hunt mice.
For I am a hunter and I must have my freedom.

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Online Watcherofthewoods

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Re: Scrimshaw
« Reply #2 on: June 27, 2011, 09:44:22 PM »
What I'm amazed at is the simplicity of it, this only took me 30 minutes

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Complain less, breathe more.

It isn't until man is quiet that nature will speak.

In the silence and solitude of the night is when you truely find yourself.

Online KentuckyWoodsman

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Re: Scrimshaw
« Reply #3 on: June 27, 2011, 10:43:08 PM »
Nice work Watcher!
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Offline taken by the wind...

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Re: Scrimshaw
« Reply #4 on: June 27, 2011, 10:49:23 PM »
~ I think it's beautiful ...   :thumbup:  I love it!
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Offline survivorgirl

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Re: Scrimshaw
« Reply #5 on: June 28, 2011, 08:26:54 PM »
oh wow that is great watcher
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Offline Unca Walt

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Re: Scrimshaw
« Reply #6 on: July 02, 2011, 01:46:30 PM »
I gots a whole bunch of antique whale's tooth scrimshaw.  They were given to me in lieu of a paycheck.  

Here's a coupla of them:

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Offline survivorgirl

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Re: Scrimshaw
« Reply #7 on: July 02, 2011, 07:40:14 PM »
those are nice
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I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.-henry David Thoreau

Online KentuckyWoodsman

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Re: Scrimshaw
« Reply #8 on: July 06, 2011, 08:24:44 PM »
I have always liked scimshaw.
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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -Mark Twain
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